Monday, July 31, 2017

Check out the two new 'OBEY' versions of the classic "Trump/They Live" illustrations now available on anything and everything (plus, please take a peek at the dozens of other t-shirt designs while you're there)!https://mitchoconnell.threadless.com

Sunday, July 30, 2017

WOW! Thanks to everyone who's written about the Trump/They Live billboard art installation!I could easily spend my days blissfully just reading about myself, and now, with the press this has received, I can!Just a small sampling of the many folks I owe I drink to-

Monday, July 17, 2017

A few months ago, for the heck of it, I innocently started a ‘Go Fund Me’ campaign https://www.gofundme.com/trump-lives to get my Trump/They Live artwork on billboards across Washington. My wide-eyed sales pitch went as such… “Hi! I’m Mitch O’Connell, a freelance artist with a fun idea to pay tribute to a classic 80s horror movie that’s more relevant today than ever. Way back in August of 2015 I was starting to sketch out a poster design to advertise a 24 hour horror movie marathon. The headlining feature was a screening of “They Live”, starring Rowdy Roddy Piper and directed by John Carpenter. It's a masterful cult movie of gruesome aliens planning to take over Earth walking among us disguised as humans. But luckily our heroes, by looking through special glasses, can see the bad guy's true otherworldly skeletal features and when they run out of bubblegum, kick some ET ass. As I was penciling away, Trump was on the tv talking about something or other a couple months into his candidacy.I’ve enjoyed watching The Donald since the days of Celebrity Apprentice. He was a very amusing blowhard parading around in his gold on gold hotel rooms, and now mesmerizing in his run doing the opposite of any other candidate. I looked back at my drawing, then back at Trump, and started thinking how funny it would be to give that alien Trumps equally mesmerizing swoop of hair. It was a very natural fit!At the time, I thought I was the first person on the planet to do a ‘They Live’ parody, but of course later on I discovered that other creative folks had the same brainstorm before me with Reagan, Obama and others as the alien, and after my doodle made the rounds, it seemed everyone and his brother was doing the Trump/They Live mash-up. In fact, my two versions of the art became the most popular things I’ve ever drawn. Every day, Amazon would have at least a dozen sellers with bootleg items from tees to backpacks. It was the choice of many tattoos and also painted as stenciled graffiti. I was seeing it on protest signs in marches and all over the internet. It even made the cover of the UK news magazine, ’The Big Issue’. On election day, assuming Hilary’s win, I thought that would be the end of my drawings journey. But surprise, surprise, it was a ‘Good News, Bad News’ kinda night. The good news? The art would still be kept alive! With a Trump presidency, things just keep getting stranger (and the bar was set pretty high for strange to begin with), and the world of ’They Live’ becomes even more prophetic. Of course, this isn’t all Trumps fault. No matter what your point of view, most folks feel Washington is a big mess of nonfunctioning nonsense, but since Trump has the best hair, he also wins getting the caricature on the billboard. :-) So before nuclear war ends all life on Earth, for shits ’n giggles, why not have this artwork displayed on billboards right where much of this world altering nuttiness occurs, Washington DC? The people must be alerted, and they won’t even need the glasses!I know there are much more important fundraisers on Go Fund Me. Guessing any kidney transplants reasonably might have the slight edge on me. On the other hand, when billions are spent to elect these folks, and so far 100,000,000 has been spent on our presidents Mar-A-Lago golf outings, a couple grand as a start to put up a funny billboard doesn’t seem that crazy. And if some Super Pac want to funnel the green this way in the next 30 days, we could have a hundred billboards up and down our Nation’s capital. So when I’m sitting in Guantanamo Bay after Trump sees them, we can all have a good laugh!” It turned out to be a little more difficult than I imagined..The first billboard company, ‘Clear Channel’, was good to go. I had it all planned out with them before I started the crowd funding. They had seen the “Make America Great Again/They Live’ art and didn’t voice any objections. When I was ready to give them the money to actually install the Washington billboard they got cold feet and changed their minds. ‘Outfront Media’ was the next company that respond to my inquiries. Again, I showed them the art first. They explained the no way in hell was this going to fly in Washington, so I went with a Chicago billboard that was around 25 by 30’ for $2800. I redesigned the art to fit but just as I finished they also emailed with second thoughts and backed out. I went to ‘Interstate Outdoor Advertising’ and sent them the art. Again, no problem. What I could get for our $3000 was a 14 by 48’ billboard outside of Chicago on I-55. I again redrew the art to fit, signed the contracts and sent them my payment information. Then they came to their senses and said no-go. I went back to ‘JCDecaux’ a company I had sounded out earlier that only offered those 5’ high panels on the side of bus stops in Chicago. At this point, I’m open to most anything. For $3000 I could have one on Michigan Ave for a month, but a day later this was waiting in my inbox “I’m afraid that since this is political in nature, especially with the bad press Kathy Griffin gave recently, the City will turn down your ad copy” was their thanks but no thanks response.In all I think I contacted over thirty billboard companies, some that had thousands of ones for rent, and many that had only a few regional offerings. Most didn’t even respond to multiple inquiries. The ones that did, started to realize that this is a President that, in all likelihood, will make it a personal vendetta to destroy whatever company dares mock him. Others were more upfront with their reasoning, "Thanks for your e-mail. I will discuss your artwork and idea with the owner of our company on Monday. However, I need to let you know that we are all huge Trump supporters and we would not post anything on our billboards that would appear to disparage the President in any way. Love Donald Trump!!!!”Yes, I don’t think much of Donald Trump, but I soft-selled this as much as humanly possible when making the pitch to anyone I could find, but it was a no-go TO EVERY SINGLE BILLBOARD COMPANY IN THE UNITED STATES! I thought that was the end of it. But then, cue music, the brave folks across the border, the upstanding heroic citizens of Mexico that Trump based his campaign on objectifying as rapists and criminals, had the cojones to give Trump the FU.God Bless Mexico, the only country left that has the freedom to display the The Trump/They Live Billboard!